


The ugliest blanket

by Whis



Series: Evan "Buck" Buckley week 2020 [1]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Evan Buckley Week 2020, Fluff, Gen, Memories, evanweek2020, mentions of past sick child, my buck begins, nothing graphic, nothing major
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 08:02:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26968699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whis/pseuds/Whis
Summary: Maddie is gonna have a baby so Buck has to do something specialIn his search for that something special, Buck remembers his own childhood, his mother and the ugliest blanket
Series: Evan "Buck" Buckley week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967998
Comments: 14
Kudos: 57
Collections: 9-1-1 Tales





	The ugliest blanket

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1: “Are you warm enough?” + fluff

When Buck was a kid there were very few things that made him feel safe and sound. One of those things was his blanket. 

It wasn’t an ordinary blanket. It was ugly. From the color -a too bright and too cheesy green that made it look like a soccer field- to the sloppy stitches and loose knots.

Buck didn’t care. It was the only thing that his too busy and too cold mother has ever done for him with her bare hands. 

She hadn’t known how to knit when she did it but Buck remembers being a sick kid in a hospital bed, scared and tired. 

Every time he had opened his eyes she has been there. So her mother, who has always been nothing but perfect in everything she did and used to be full of confidence and coldness, had been always at his bedside, hair greasy, make up running, eyes reddish and swearing at the yearn and the needle for not doing what she wanted them to do.

It was the first time he felt his mother really cared about him. 

The blanket had been with him every time he had to go to the hospital with a new feverish episode and even though his mother had learned every kind of knitting, crocheting technique and had done some perfect blanket for every member of the family he wanted that particular blanket and she had allowed it. 

When Maddie told him she was having a baby he was beyond ecstatic… his beautiful sister was having a baby! 

He knew he had to do something special

“I don’t want you buying her a lot of toys Buck” his sister has said and he knows why. Growing up, the only way their parents had known how to show their love had been with presents and money. They still do

Those things, all the toys, and clothes and things that their parent bought to make amends for the fact they were hardly ever at home, and when they were it was mostly awkward, they have never made them feel better about all the other things they were missing. 

Growing up, Buck and Maddie have had everything they needed except for encouraging words and unprompted hugs.

Buck knows better than most that most toys and games will end in a forgotten trunk of memories and he wants better for his niece.

So he decided to knit a blanket. 

First, he did what anybody would do, he watched tutorials on YouTube

Then he went shopping. He chose a loud and brilliant yellow yarn, it was soft and cheesy and Buck loved it. He then bought the needles and decided that crocheting was more his thing, it seemed easier for him and his big hands to man one needle instead of two

The whole vocabulary thing was difficult. He knew what a chain was and what a snitch was thanks to his mother and grandmother, but when he started to read about rows, double crochet and double treble crochet he was beyond lost so he decided to just do whatever they were doing in the video he chose

So he started and he did it. He just knew what to do and he wasn’t sure how or why. Until memories started to flow through him. Her mother, with the needle and the yarn and his fingers, talking about how relaxing it was, explaining how to do the sliding stitch and follow the chain, giving him his first needle that was big and simple, perhaps too big for his small fingers

He remembered trying and his happiness the first time he was able to connect to snitches and when he kept going until he had his first chain and her mother was proud, perhaps for the first time in his life.

He can’t remember what happened, why it stopped. Perhaps his mother got bored. Perhaps he was the one who got bored. Probably. When he was a kid -once he got over whatever had caused all those fever episodes and the seizures- Buck became a daredevil, unable to sit still more than ten seconds as if he was in a constant contest with life, always trying to compensate himself for all those days, weeks and months spent in a hospital bed, too weak to do nothing more than watch his family go and come. He still is

So it was a little bit of a surprise for him when he realized he could remember the basics that his mother had tried to teach him a long time ago. It took him longer to see that most of his memories of his favorites memories of his mother had yarn and needles on them.

It took him a few weeks and it was harder than he thought, he still lacks the patience to sit for long periods of time. Nevertheless, he finished just in time to welcome his niece

The blanket wasn’t perfect. Perhaps the color wasn’t too cute, and it was sloppy with too many loosened knots and the messy pattern, 

When he saw his niece for the first time, with those beautiful brown eyes, the pouty mouth, and the small nose that was all Maddie, Buck felt so full of love he thought he would explode. 

And when he put the ugly blanket he has made on her she smiled at him for the first time. 

“Are you warm enough little bean?” he whispered and the baby looked at him with those eyes and the rest of the world became background and noises. 

There was only the little bunch of joy in the crib, looking at him under the ugly blanket

_ I hope it always makes you feel safe and sound _ , he prayed with his heart 


End file.
